Over the past years, privacy and security policies, and related operations have become increasingly important. Breaches in security, leading to the unauthorized access of personal data (which may include sensitive personal data) have become more frequent among companies and other organizations of all sizes. Such personal data may include, but is not limited to, personally identifiable information (PII), which may be information that directly (or indirectly) identifies an individual or entity. Examples of PII include names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, and biometric identifiers such as a person's fingerprints or picture. Other personal data may include, for example, customers' Internet browsing habits, purchase history, or even their preferences (e.g., likes and dislikes, as provided or obtained through social media).
Many organizations that obtain, use, and transfer personal data, including sensitive personal data, have begun to address these privacy and security issues. To manage personal data, many companies have attempted to implement operational policies and processes that comply with legal and industry requirements. However, there is an increasing need for improved systems and methods to manage personal data in a manner that complies with such policies.
Also, one significant challenge associated with software development is creating consistent and easy-to-understand documentation of computer code. Although some programmers are diligent about including comments in source code that explains the purpose and/or operation of the code, many programmers either provide limited or no comments as they write code. This may be due to a view, held by some programmers, that their time is better spent coding rather than documenting what they are doing.
Having detailed, accurate documentation of source code can result in significant time and cost savings in the long run. This is because the documentation can allow others to quickly understand the purpose and operation of the code without having to analyze the code line-by-line.
On another note, in recent years, data privacy has become an increasingly important and prevalent issue. With the implementation of new, strict laws and regulations regarding what types of personal data companies obtain and how they store and use that data, it has become critical that companies know exactly what type of personal data they collect, why they are collecting the data, and how the data is being used. It is also important that companies demonstrate that they are designing their software with privacy considerations in mind.